The invention herein relates to a guide block or pad for the side wall members of an adjustable width continuous casting mold of the type disclosed and illustrated in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,727 issued June 22, 1976. Such continuous casting molds are used in the casting process of forming continuous slabs from molten metal.
The casting mold itself is a box-like container or frame having an open upper and lower end to form a casting cavity. Molten metal is poured into the upper open end and is partially cooled within the cavity so as to form a solidified skin surrounding an interior core of molten metal. The skin and core together form a continuous, extrusion like slab which emerges from the open lower end of the mold.
In such type casting, the continuous slab may remain in approximately vertical position below the mold or it may be bent or turned into a horizontal direction for cutting and processing. My prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,978,910 issued Sept. 7, 1976, describes a side wall member cooling system wherein the interior walls forming the cavity of the mold are curved slightly from a vertical to a horizontal direction. As the slab is formed in the mold, it begins to curve away from the vertical. As it is further cooled beneath the mold, while supported upon rollers, the slab is guided to curve 90.degree. from the vertical, i.e., into horizontal direction.
The mold front and rear interior mold surfaces are either flat and vertical for vertical slab formation, or curved for bending the slab horizontally. Thus, the mold side wall members, which are clamped between front and rear wall members of the continuous casting mold may have their side edges either straight or curved to contact and closely fit between either the flat or the curved interior surfaces of the mold walls. In either event, the side wall members are preferably perpendicular to the front and rear wall members. Such side walls members are formed of interior face plates made of copper or copper-like material which are supported by back plates. The face plates are appropriately grooved or channeled to receive cooling water which is flowed into and out of the channels through openings or pockets formed in the backing plates. Each backing plate normally is of a slightly smaller size than the face plate so that its edges are gapped or spaced away from the front and rear interior wall surfaces of the mold.
In the mold described above, as further described in my U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,727 mentioned above, the side wall members are supported upon mounting blocks so that they may be adjusted inwardly towards each other or outwardly away from each other by adjusting the longitudinal movement of support shafts carried by the blocks. The mounting blocks also are provided with bolts, to support them to the front and rear walls of the mold, and plungers or separaters to separate the mold walls against a spring pressure, to loosen the side wall members for adjustment when desired.
During adjustment of the side wall members, where the front and rear walls of the mold are held apart sufficiently to unclamp the side wall members, it has been found that the movement of the side wall members sometimes results in them cocking or tilting out of perpendicular relative to the interior surfaces of the front and rear walls, with the result that when the walls are released for reclamping the side wall members between them, a misalignment of the side wall members sometimes occurs. This produces a gap or space between one side edge and its adjacent front or rear wall surface, which receives molten metal and forms a flash along one corner of the slab. Such a flash causes the slab to resist moving through the mold and may tear or break or form a weaker spot in the fragile, thin slab skin to permit the molden metal core to break out.
Thus, the invention herein is concerned with the problem of maintaining the side wall members in proper alignment with the interior wall surfaces of the front and rear walls of the mold to prevent flash forming wall gaps in the mold corners.